Full Description
Few cities have been so celebrated in print as Bath - from Smollett to Jane Austen, from Dickens to Fanny Burney, and from Sheridan to Georgette Heyer. Many other famous writers have passed through as well - Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in a house in the Abbey Church Yard, Coleridge met his wife in the city, and in the twentieth century John Betjeman championed its architectural heritage. Even Shakespeare - or so it is believed - turned up to take a dip in the hot springs. These eleven walks look at Bath through their eyes, creating a vivid social history of the city over the last 300 years and bringing the past alive with unparalleled immediacy. Fully illustrated, and including in-depth accounts of the writers and works featured, they can either be followed on foot or - with the aid of historic maps of the city - read as a series of essays.
Contents
Foreword by Peter Lovesey Introduction 1 The Lost Inns of Bath: A Literary Odyssey 2 'Like Mirrors Made, for Men to See': The Bath Stage in the Eighteenth Century 3 'A Sink of Profligacy and Extortion': Tobias Smollett in Bath 4 The Rudest Man in England: An Introduction to Philip Thicknesse 5 Pleasure, Pain and Grief: Fanny Burney in Bath 6 Rebels and Romantics: Catherine Macaulay, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mary Shelley & Percy Bysshe Shelley in Bath 7 'The Rhythm of Tom Paine's Bones' Radicalism and Repression in Pitt's 'Reign of Terror' 8 'Vapour, Shadow, Smoke and Confusion': Jane Austen's Bath 9 Pickwick, Pubs and Penny Readings: In the Footsteps of Charles Dickens 10 Beaux, Belles and Black Sheep: Bath Through the Eyes of Georgette Heyer 11 'Goodbye to Old Bath': Around Bath with John Betjeman Summary of distances and accessibility Acknowledgements & Picture Credits Further Reading, Bookshops, Museums & Galleries
